Without the state

The business of being an artist.

If like me you have come to making art as a second (or in my case third!) career it means you are probably trying, if not to reinvent yourself, then at least some sort of renewal.The idea of a creative life seems a popular choice for those of us in that position, with more of our life behind us than we can anticipate in front. It isn't surprising. You make what you want to make, you interest yourself in what you want to be interested in, and you do all of this when you choose to, not at the behest of any boss.

It's a grand dream isn't it?

Unfortunately self interest is fine so far as it goes, but what is missing from this picture is the need for enough people to share your interests, to like what you make of them and in so doing give you enough money to carry on pleasing yourself...

I can't find the source now, but I recall reading recently that the average income of an artist in the UK was less than £10,000. Bearing in mind that this includes people like Damien Hirst, it is clear that for most artists, while they may dream of making a living from their work is that is what it is likely to remain.

That doesn't mean you can't approach your work as an artist as if it were a business. In fact it means just the opposite. Most self-described artists will be supplementing their income in various ways - by teaching or by working in some unrelated activity.However, the more time spent teaching or answering the phone in a call centre the less time you have available for your own art. Somewhere along the line, you need to strike a balance.

Finding that balance is something only you can do. It will mean taking a long hard look at your life in the round - and who you share it with. You will need to look at your financial reserves which may mean thinking about your artistic ambitions and how they mesh with your need to eat. Finally you will need to organise yourself to maximise the return on your investment of time in making your art.

The "Business Planning for Working Artists" e-book I am working on will look at this last question in particular, but a key element will involve thinking about who you are and who you want to be. Only when you have dealt with that issue can you start planning your business. After all, you want your art business to support you, not the other way around. 

You can get a free copy of the e-book when it is ready by signing up to my newsletter using the form in the side bar on the right. Don't forget, if you sign up by 20th January you can get a free print too. See this post for more information.

 

Politicians, economists and the reality of climate change

I’ve finally got round to seeing ‘The Day After Tomorrow’. It is a fairly routine adventure story, topped off with great effects and lots of heroic ‘derring-do’. The nut jobs who complained about it as propaganda for the climate change lobby clearly need to get out more, because in the end the science in the film is there only to serve as a trigger for the action.

Some political points were made of course but they were nothing to do with climate change – I’m sure the irony of millions of illegal immigrants heading south over the Rio Grande into Mexico was not lost on US audiences for example. In the end though, to use the fact that a filmmaker takes liberties with the science of climate change for dramatic effect, as an argument against the reality is to say the least bizarre. I suspect that those who are still trying to deny what is going would be doing so in letters written in green ink if they didn’t have access to e-mail.

I don’t see such concern for scientific rigour in other films. As I've said before - how many buses can leap across 30 foot gaps in the roadway (Speed), how likely is it that a virus could be uploaded to a computer you've never seen, built using technology you have no idea about (Independence Day), how likely is it that you could clone a replica Hitler to take over the world (The Boys from Brazil) how likely is any of the action in any James Bond movie? And as for The Stepford Wives! Its one thing to criticise a move because it is badly written but really people - get a life!

The latest report from the IPCC seems to have finally demonstrated the reality of climate change and what we face over the next 100 years. The projections are frightening:

• Probable temperature rise between 1.8C and 4C
•  Possible temperature rise between 1.1C and 6.4C
•  Sea level most likely to rise by 28-43cm
•  Arctic summer sea ice disappears in second half of century
• Increase in heatwaves very likely
• Increase in tropical storm intensity likely

These predictions exclude areas of really tentative science. For example, there is no consensus about the effect of melting polar ice on currents like the Gulf Stream or about the speed with which it would happen. Because they have been excluded it is possible that the impact on sea levels would be much greater, while the impact on temperature is also uncertain. The scenario in The Day After Tomorrow is still one of the possibilities if rather more remote than once thought.

There are those scientific ignoramuses (ignorami?) who would argue that these uncertain impacts should have been included, thus widening the range of error. There are even more stupid people who decry the fact that scientists revise their views. Take this for example:

On July 24, 1974 Time Magazine published an article entitled "Another Ice Age?" Here's the first paragraph:

"As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age."

Their conclusion then was "The trend shows no indication of reversing"! And, wonders of wonders, the impossible to conceive "reversing" occurred!

Take care with this because there is some fast footwork going on. See how the conclusion ‘The trend shows no indication of reversing’ morphs into ‘impossible to conceive’? If that isn’t scientific stupidity it is intellectual dishonesty – which is even worse because it is deliberate.

However, giving these people the benefit of the doubt, they clearly do not understand the idea of scientific method and its impact on uncertainty or even the concept of statistical uncertainty. I don’t think it is accidental that the most outspoken opponents of the thesis of human driven climate change are politicians and economists. Both groups claim to have the answer to your every ill, neither group shows any sign of understanding science and in general they do not progress by admitting of uncertainty of any kind, let alone on issues such as this. In that respect I thought the exchanges between the politicians and the scientists in The Day After Tomorrow to be quite realistic, as the politicians struggle with the political impact of bad news.

Those who deny the fact of climate change and its human component seem to be resorting to ever more desperate arguments in vain attempts to undermine the basic facts. The latest uses tentative suggestions that Mars is coming out of an ice age as the basis for an argument that this proves climate change on Earth is not man made. They ignore the fact that Mars doesn’t have large bodies of water and that the drivers of its climate will therefore be very different to those on Earth. Consequently the same event – whether it be sunspots or cosmic rays or whatever else is flavour of the month – is likely to lead have different climatic consequences on the two planets. They also seem quite happy to use scientific data gathered over a relatively short timescale – and recognised by its authors as highly tentative - to dispute decades of work by thousands of scientists.

You may have come across Mr Myron Ebell (an economist), who argues that the whole thing is a conspiracy to do down the US. It is Mr Ebell, (not a climatologist) who claimed that the UK Chief Scientist didn’t know what he was talking about because he wasn’t a climatologist. Spot the flaw in that argument? I’ve seen Mr Ebell described as an intellectual terrorist and that isn’t wrong. He is certainly willing to shift his ground and argue black is white so I suppose we have to class him as a politician too. This site documents Ebell’s activities quite comprehensively.

He isn’t alone of course – take this comment on the Guardian Comment is Free site.

Environmentalists just form the rump of the social scientist west-hating morons who are actually willing the environment to collapse so they can say I told you so and blame the US.

Sadly such hysteria is all too common. It probably means a dim future for our children and grandchildren.

Working with Consultants – a good practice guide

I have written this brief guide to help community and voluntary organisations considering the employment of a consultant. It has been written based on experience on both sides of the fence—as a senior officer in local government responsible for running numerous consultancy contracts and as a self employed consultant. The guide is not intended to deal with employment of builders or similar contractors.

Brief outline of contents follows:

Preliminaries
What is the project?
Why are you considering use of consultants?
Project Brief
Identification of consultants
Selection of consultants

The full document – still only two pages can be downloaded (in Acrobat .pdf) format from here

Let me know if you find it useful.

This document is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/